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U.S., North Korea hold direct talks

Pallavi Aiyar

Lifting of sanctions focus of dialogue

Beijing: Talks between U.S. and North Korean financial experts on discussing ways to lift financial sanctions imposed by Washington on Pyongyang got underway in Beijing on Tuesday. The outcome of these talks which are being held on the sidelines of a multilateral six-nation effort to negotiate the future of North Korea's nuclear programme, will be crucial to any larger settlement on the DPRK nuclear issue.

North Korea had left the negotiating table 13 months ago, angered at the time by the U.S. blacklisting of a Macau bank in which Pyongyang had deposited $24 million. Washington alleged the bank was complicit in the North's counterfeiting of American currency and money laundering to sell weapons of mass destruction.

China hopeful

Washington is represented at the financial talks by Daniel Glaser, the Treasury Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes.

The North Korean delegation is led by O. Kwang Chol, president of the DPRK's Foreign Trade Bank of Korea. The talks are reportedly being held at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular news briefing that Beijing hopes the two sides can "solve the [financial] issue properly." "We wish to see them make positive achievements that we believe will facilitate the process of the [nuclear] talks," he said.

China is widely believed to have more influence with Pyongyang than any other country and the return of DPRK to the negotiating table has been largely attributed to diplomatic efforts on Beijing's part in the aftermath of North Korea's October nuclear test. The North Korean and U.S. delegations also held their first one-on-one meeting over the nuclear standoff on Tuesday afternoon according to information released by the Chinese press centre in Beijing.

Earlier in the day, all the six nations involved in the talks — the two Koreas, Russia, China, Japan and the U.S. — met for two hours in the morning. During this meeting negotiators focused on the logistics of implementing a pledge made by Pyongyang in September 2005 to give up its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees.

However, speaking ahead of the meeting, U.S. envoy for the six-party talks, Christopher Hill said that not too much progress had been made toward implementing the agreement.

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